Obama and His Accomplishments

The sumerians had a cool system where you made little figurines that symbolized a goat, cow, or whatever, and then sealed them with both parties and a notary present inside a clay pot, then fired it. What was in it was written on the side. When it was time to pay up what was owed, the pot was "broken," revealing the figurines and thus concluding the loan/deal.

 

I have no problem with what you just said. I wasn't reading any sort of labor or exchange component earlier when capital was being discussed.

 

Meat for sex was probably going on by day 2.

 

"A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them,"
Steve Jobs

What about all of the things that consumers want, but cannot have? Cheaper fuel. A cure for cancer. Penis enlargment pills (that work) (for a friend)?

How could this be possible if the supply was predicated on the demand, alone, or at all?

I'm wading into an arena (finance) in which I am largely ignorant.

But if people filled my yard, demanding lemonade - would I not need capital to purchase the initial ingredients and supplies? If I did not have such required capital available to make lemonade, would either the number or strength of those demanding somehow magically deliver it? So, of I have demand but no capital - I'm screwed.

If I had no persons in my yard demanding lemonade, given sufficient capital - couldn't I choose to open a lemonade stand, regardless of the known demand that it might encounter? So if I have capital and no demand, I can still make and attempt to sell lemonade.

In either case - whether there is enormous demand, or none - capital remains to be the equally necessary component of making / producing and providing lemonade, does it not?

If true, then how can demand, and not supply, drive the economy?

 

Ba-zing!

 

In the words of Steve Martin, How to become a millionaire,"First get a million dollars!"

 

How are the logical steps for that line of inquiry any different than saying, "if no one were around to drink, why would anyone make lemonade?"

It's half the story either way.

 

No, it's not.

Without capital, no lemonade is possible - meaning, cannot be made, sold, purchased or consumed - regardless of any demand. Demand without capital will only result in being thirsty.

Capital can create supply independent of demand, without capital, demands go unfulfilled. If true, then how can a dependency (demand) then drive the economic train?

Second question: are BPV's assertions of "sour grapes", true? I'm not saying this to be inflammatory - but if there is one thing that will draw liberals tightly to a position, it's the avoidance of personal responsibility. If anyone has the right to open a lemonade stand, and some do while others do not, how can the latter (poor) group blame the former (rich lemonade magnates)?

 

Without demand, no lemonade would be made, sold, purchased, or consumed...

The sour grapes thing went over my head, so I don't know how to answer that.

 

Obama has gotten quite a bit done in one term. It's a matter of whether you believe those things are for the good when considering if these are "accomplishments".

 

I'm in the boat with you. I'm no economist, but without a consumer class there's not enough folks to sustain the wealthy class. Folks just didn't wake up and have massive bank accounts. At some point, someone had to produce and sell a large amout of some kind of product for them to be wealthy. Rich folks that magically sprout out of the ground and sprinkle their benevolence on others makes zero sense to me. The wealthy and the consumer class are co-dependant on each other it seems to me.

 

This is how I see it too IP. Would it be rational to say that capital and demand at worst depend on each other? I understand the fact that it takes capital to produce anything. I agree. What I don't understand, and perhaps I'm not reading the arguments correctly, is the total dismissal of the importanace of demand. If there's no demand, there can be no return on capital investments. The Jobs quote about people not realizing they wanted the ipad is a stretch to me. I agree that people may not have known that they wanted an ipad until it came out, but the still was a basic demand for the things the ipad does. People wanted portable internet connections for example. Jobs tapped into that demand and went further with the concept giving consumers what they wanted and even more. Still, the basic demand was always present.

 

IP - thousands of companies attempt to sell goods and services every single day, and go belly up for any number of reasons, includkg those without sufficient demand.

But if they have the capital to offer said goods and services, it can be produced and offered for consumption and use.

But you can have the entire world demanding something, however fervently, and without someone giving the capital to provide or build it, nothing would get done about it. Nothing.

The satisfying of a demand is dependent upon someone providing it, and that requires capital. The demands don't buy your water, lemons, stand, pitches, ice....money does. No money = no lemonade.

 

No, the expending of capital is not dependent upon a sufficiency of demand, or even any at all, whatsoever.

Now, do you need demand to sell things and ultimately prosper - it sure helps - but it is not required to start.

If you don't have the money to make lemonade, it doesn't matter how many people want it - because there is none to give.

 

This really doesn't make sense to me. Producing products with no demand is a recipe for wealthy folks to become unwealthy in a hurry.

 

Demand exists everywhere for a whole bunch of products that brought America tremendous wealth. Why has America prospered more than everyone else? We don't have more or harder workers. We're not smarter than everyone else. We don't have the most natural resources. How on earth did we use demand, the mother of all economics, to such an advantage while everyone else pissed away their opportunities? Don't those idiots understand demand?

 

Point is that the demand doesn't have to predate the production and never does for the innovator.

 

Ok. I kinda see what you are saying. Would you agree that innovations dat some level are designed to meet an existing demand even if it does so in ways those that need solutions never expected? I mean, someone could innovate a really cool way to separate corn cellulose from a turd, but is there demand for that? Yes, my example is purposefully outrageous. I just can't buy into the fact that something produced no matter how ingenious will automatically produce it's own demand where no demand existed previously. Launching new products is risky enough, but hoping your product will create demand where there was none before sounds downright crazy to me.

 

And you've just defined the risk of investing capital and why the return expectations tend to be outsized.

 

I know what you are saying, but that sounds more like suicide of investing capital not merely risk. We just see things differently. I in no way hate wealthy folks. They are a major cog in our economy. But, I just can't accept that they are the supreme omnipotent entity, the alpha and omega of our economy. I just can't see it in those simple terms.


Just had a thought. Are you saying that capital (money) of producers is all that's important or are you saying that it's important in the conumer class as well? I could go with that a bit because without the means to purchase goods and services, consumers can't buy products that are produced even if they want to buy them.